The present disclosure relates to an embroidery data creation apparatus and a storage medium storing an embroidery data creation program. More specifically, it relates to an embroidery data creation apparatus that creates embroidery data required to represent an image with embroidery and a storage medium storing an embroidery data creation program.
Conventionally, an image such as a photo or an illustration has been represented with embroidery by using a variety of sewing methods. One of these sewing methods is embroidering for representing an image with a pattern made up of a plurality of scanning lines disposed parallel to each other with predetermined spacing therebetween as shown in FIG. 15. Hereinafter, this method of representing by use of embroidery is referred to as a “blind stitch”. FIG. 14 shows an original image 900 and FIG. 15 is a schematic diagram of an embroidery result 901 obtained from the original image 900 by sewing with blind stitches. In an example shown in FIG. 15, the original image 900 shown in FIG. 14 is divided into horizontally-long regions by dividing with a predetermined width vertically. A straight stitch is performed along a horizontal centerline (reference line) of each of the divided regions, while a zigzag stitch is performed on the portion corresponding to deep color portions in the original image 900. A swing width for the zigzag switch varies with how deep the color of the image is. Conventionally, embroidery cloth having this blind stitch performed on it has been proposed (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-131030). Further, instead of a straight stitch, only a zigzag stitch is to be performed in accordance with an embroidery structure of an invention described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-119948. With changing swing width and angle of the zigzag stitch, a stitching density varies, thereby representing an image with embroidery.